Unlocking The Art and Business Behind the Movies and TV

Richard Gere and Diane Lane are an enduring screen couple

Only once in her career has Diane Lane ever been asked to meet an actor to ascertain if the pair would have enough onscreen "chemistry" to make the screen sizzle. That was for the 1984 movie "The Cotton Club," and director Francis Ford Coppola wanted Lane to come meet Richard Gere.

"I was filming 'Streets of Fire' and graduating high school," she recalls with a throaty chuckle. "On a Sunday, I had to fly to New York and then fly back the same day. I was 18 and very upended by that feeling of auditioning -- when I had already made two films for the director. I kind of felt rebellious against that whole sweet-and-sunshine kind of popularity contest that one assumes an audition might be. Richard just cut through my whole awkwardness and laughed at me, and we've been laughing every since."